Little CJ’s annual Christmas letter
Written by Little CJ, Carolyn Crane’s childhood portrait painted by an elderly aunt.
Hi everybody! Season’s greetings!
Well, this has been another awesome year for me, hanging on the wall of Carolyn Crane’s office, gathering dust and being unappreciated. Again Carolyn Crane did not convince her husband to allow me to be on the wall in the living room over the fireplace, which is my rightful place. Why? Mr. Crane feels I look creepy and he says that my eyes follow him around the room, which they do not. And let me add, Carolyn Crane was rather tepid in her defense.
Never mind. I am not bitter. I am here to tell about Carolyn Crane’s exciting year!
Carolyn’s mental health has been excellent for the most part. Though the amount of LOL’s and exclamation marks she uses on Twitter has been on the upswing: not a good sign. One day soon, this tweet will come for absolutely no reason at all: LOL!! !!! LOL !!! LOL ! LOL !!!!!!!
But we are not thinking about that this holiday season!
Carolyn wrote two books that got published this year! We are all so shocked here at the Crane household. Her book Double Cross was nominated for Best Paranormal Fantasy 2010 at Goodreads Choice Awards, and nominated for RT’s Reviewers Choice award for Best Urban Fantasy, and for Best Fantasy at Authors After Dark. Naturally, she strutted proudly around for days after learning of these things and dropped the word “nominated” into every conversation possible. She sometimes points out that her last name begins with a “C” just like her idol, Kresley Cole.
I am sad to say Carolyn is a kind of a Christmas Grinch this year. Instead of Christmas decorations, the fireplace is festooned with the detritus of her life, and substandard art. Not that I am bitter about not being in the living room. But Christmas IS a season for Joyous Little Children. I am extremely joyous.
She has nearly finished the third book in the trilogy, which she believes is her best, most dramatic, and most thrilling work ever. Then again, Carolyn also believes in Bigfoot. Carolyn was invited to two upcoming anthologies. One is an antho with an unnamed group of four authors she is crazy about, and she is writing disillusionists spin-off for it. The other is a short in the “Mammoth Book of Ghost Romance,” but she is having trouble thinking of how to make a ghost story sexy. (Which Kresley Cole of course pulled off brilliantly in Dark Needs at Night’s Edge.) Oh, poor clueless Carolyn. If a certain childhood portrait were hanging in the living room, perhaps that portrait already has an amazing idea and would whisper it into your ear.
As you may remember from last year’s Christmas letter, Carolyn gets very excited when she sees a bride, and that is still true! She loves to stare at brides and seemed very interested in Amanda Palmer’s wedding to Gaiman. Also, Carolyn has been practicing not biting her nails so she can wear nail polish to RWA in New York City and AAD convention. She is also planning on getting her hair cut like one of her twitter friends. She so badly wants to be like the other authors.
Not to alarm people, but I, Little CJ, have noticed, here in the office, that Carolyn Crane has been letting her plants go to the brink of death, only to revive them again. Wasn’t this the way that the Vampire horde tortured Laclain MacRieve in Kresley Cole’s “A Hunger Like No Other” ??? Something to think about if you meet her at one of those conventions.
Carolyn is taking yoga lessons this winter. She is very proud to be learning this new thing, and she hopes to get a proper yoga outfit soon, and also, to learn to tell her right hand from her left, like the others in the class seem to be able to do. Still, the socialization is excellent for her. It is great for her to see how others interact in the real world.
In reading news, Carolyn read nearly twenty-two books this year! She is very proud of this (please don’t tell her how many books you have read this year.) Predictably, her favorites were Kresley Cole’s Demon From the Dark, and Joanne Bourne’s The Forbidden Rose. She is hugely looking forward Cole’s Dreams of a Dark Warrior and to Bourne’s telling of Adrian’s story, which comes out in the fall of 2011. Though, she really wants Lazarus to have a book, and one day she is sure to embarrass herself by emailing Joanna Bourne about it.
New words Carolyn learned this year:
- Mordant
- Trope
- Drollery
Carolyn also memorized how to spell separate and vicious. We are really proud of her this holiday season! Happy Holidays to all our friends!
Carolyn (and Little CJ): Prize open to International: Winner gets a $20 gift card from an online bookseller of their choice, or up to $20 worth of books of their choosing from Book Depository. To Enter: Tell us the most worst gift a relative has given you.
All Contests for the 13 Wicked Days of Christmas end on Wednesday December 29th, Winners Announced On Thursday December 30th.
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Little CJ deserves to be put on that wall! Great post!! Little CJ looks like a kid from The Village of the Damned.
I’ve always had pretty good Christmases until about 5 years ago. I mentioned – in passing – to my husband that we need a new tea kettle. I was NOT saying that I would like one for Christmas. Well here comes Christmas morning and I’m all excited, hoping that this is the year I FINALLY get my tennis bracelet! I open the first box and it was a hand held mini vac. Uh okay. I open the second box and it was a kettle that came with 4 tea cups. I looked at my husband and said, What the hell? What kind of gift is this? And he had the nerve to say, Well you said you wanted a new kettle. And you’re always complaining about going to the gas station to vacuum out your car. O_O
Really? I never said I wanted that sh!t for Christmas! I wanted throw the kettle at his little pea head!
A tooth brush kit. Just WTF??????
I haven’t had any terrible holiday gifts, but some have been impractical- like the cow shaped glasses holder my mom gave me a few years ago. I love it, and it sits on my desk, but I’ll never remember to put my glasses on it!
I hideous, homemade table runner.
Okay this was a 1-2 combination hit. My wife’s grandmother and aunt would give us the most unusual gifts every year. While her grandmother was alive it was a sort of contest every year to see who got the worst one. Our winning year was as follows…
I got the “good” gift of the two of us. A blue glass cologne bottle in the shape of a horse’s head. Not only am I sensitive to smells and get migraines from most perfumes, the bottle was empty. It was a used bottle. So in short she gave an Italian a horse’s head for Christmas… a smelly one.
My wife was given a pair of canvas boat shoes. Aside from the fact that the shoes were two different sizes, one of them was clearly used with much of the tread on it worn down.
Like I said… our winning year.
My husband bought me a Magic Kit like the kind you could order from the back of a comic. I mentioned once that I had one when I was a kid. It would have been a sweet and sentimental gift if I hadn’t been expecting jewelry!
I guess “MY” worst christmas present would come from this year. In my last comment I gave my hubby my money so he could get his radial saw, but, I don’t feel all that bad about that because he got something he really wanted & needed. The present that really “Irked” me: my Inlaws either deny my weight or is making fun of it. About 1 1/2 yrs ago Mr. Thyroid & Mrs. Metabolism decided that it’s time to take control over my body. They felt that I needed to gain weight because I’m so close to 40. They could have stayed @ Hybernations for 10 more years but hey, we can’t control genetics…totally…yet ;D but anyway back to my story, I use to weigh 135ish pounds. I now weigh 165 & even that’s been really tough to maintain. These “Aliens” that call themselves, my extended family, knows all this!! I’m like a size 1or 2x depending on who makes what. They got me a fleece PJ pant (which would be great) if the pant wasn’t masqurading as large but really a small. It wouldn’t fit my 40 pound female husky’s waist. Arrgghhh.